Mill Avenue Resistance – April 2009

We’ve been getting lax lately, and the Mill Avenue preacher scene is heating up again. Not only are some new (and very unpleasant) ones coming out, but some of the old ones who had stopped showing up are back for more. For the moment it appears that we can expect to find one or more groups of preachers out most if not all Friday and Saturday nights, and some of them are horribly obnoxious.

With the previously dwindling preacher population, it is easy to see why many of us felt our weekends were better spent on other activities, but those of you who have been involved and still believe that what we’re doing is worthwhile should seriously consider coming back.

In the interest of balance and sanity, I would encourage people not to show up to every event, but to find the ones that will fit into their schedules and come out when they can. We don’t need an overwhelming mass of people every time, but we do need to consistently have enough people to counter preachers, present our message, and deter violence.

This last issue has not been a big problem in the past, but recently an angry Christian hobo decided it would be a good idea to walk up to one of our female members, rip up her sign and hit her in the face with it. She was (perhaps unwisely) out alone before anyone else showed up, but incidents like this did not happen when we regularly had enough people to make thugs like him think twice.

Even as recently as last Saturday one of our long-time members was pushed and repeatedly threatened by another belligerent believer who claimed to be coming back with friends to beat him up. It was most likely an empty threat, but we can’t afford to take chances with things like this.

We need to rejuvenate the resistance. We have to show these people that they can’t push us around, and we should be showing the preachers that they still cannot renew their assault on Tempe’s citizens and visitors with impunity.

If you want to coordinate with us, send a message through the contact form or talk to us in the forum. Otherwise you can just show up on your own or with your own group and join in any time you want!

About Kazz

My name is Shawn Esplin and I am an advocate of Free Thought and general good sense and thought in general. To that end, I encourage people to seriously question the things that they have been taught, especially as children, because many of these things - religious and secular - are taken on faith until we actively choose to seriously examine them for ourselves.

I know you guys aren’t like that, and even the more annoying preachers we deal with on a regular basis aren’t a very violent bunch. The ones who worry me are people like The Door (who have tried to start fights with us on multiple occasions) and the random people who don’t like what we’re saying.

They do tend to identify themselves as Christians, but I don’t mean to paint you with the same brush. They are way on the other end of the spectrum as far as willingness to discuss things and willingness to start a violent confrontation go.

By the way, in case you didn’t already know, we wouldn’t stand by and let people attack you guys either if we were around to see it.

ya guys im sorry that happend from people liek “the door” thats not cool. i was there that night the bum ripped the sign and i saw what happen. the guy ripped her sign but there wasn’t any assault or personal violence.

You get what you deserve. God has been warning your for month to stop your assault against him and his believers. Now your paying the price. God is merciful and just. He WILL punish those who turn against him.

I would ask that for the sake of your bodies if not your souls you stop this attack. Gods wrath will come! And it will be brutal and with out mercy.

Please atheist. Turn from your sins. Embrace God’s love. If you don’t you will feel his wrath and will burn. Only death an torment will follow you on your path to destruction.

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Matthew 13:41-2 “The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather from his kingdom everything that causes sin as well as all lawbreakers. and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

jonathan m: I know it wasn’t some kind of major assault, but I believe her when she says that he hit her with the sign. It may or may not have been intentional even, but the fact remains that it is not right to grab other people’s property and rip it up. The other threats disturb me more though, on the physical violence front, because I think that in this case the guy probably didn’t really intend to hurt her and just wanted to rip up the sign.

The TRUTH: Fuck you. Seriously, what a shitty and insane thing to say. I try to stay away from personal insults here, but you are threatening us with physical harm for attacking your ideas, and don’t give me any of that “It’s not me, it’s God” nonsense, because no gods are coming down to threaten us, it is all exclusively human interaction. Anyway if your god were petty and impotent enough to be sending these guys to mess with us then I wouldn’t be very impressed.

If you or these other thugs think that you can intimidate us into not opposing your lies then you are even stupider than you sound. You have to know what a martyr is, and if any of you do hurt any of us then you will create martyrs for our cause and you will never be rid of us.

“I would ask that for the sake of your bodies if not your souls you stop this attack. Gods wrath will come! And it will be brutal and with out mercy. / Please atheist. Turn from your sins. Embrace God’s love. If you don’t you will feel his wrath and will burn. Only death an torment will follow you on your path to destruction.”

Troll. Shame on thee. Think for a moment before posting in the future. That entire post advocates: “Convert or become the victim of assault!” This is uncalled for and morally bankrupt. I am fairly certain that even thy peers would speak against this sort of embarrassment. People who behave in this manner in our society end up in prison for good reason. Threats are not tolerated in civil discourse.

Grow up or go away. The rest of us actually want a sane community here and this sort of obnoxious, juvenile snickering is not helping.

I’m a little late to the party, but I’d rather not embrace your god’s creepy wrath/love, Mr. The TRUTH. He’s entirely too bipolar and morally backwards for my tastes.

And if you’ll recall, it wasn’t the wrath of God I suffered but the wrath of a nutty bum. Am I supposed to believe the spirit of God entered into him and caused him to take my sign and whack me with it? I’d laugh if I didn’t think you actually thought that.

We will not convert out of fear. We will not convert because of threats. We will not “tear the eyes out of our reason.” As it stands, there is zero evidence for your god, and there is no indication that it will ever be otherwise. Call us blind, call us fools, but that is how we see it. And threatening us with violence does not help your rather weak case.

But I’m not threatening you Kazz, and you’re wrong it is God! You have angered God by comeiting grevious offences to an all powerful and infint God. He could wipe you from the face of this earth right now, but HE choses not to do so. You have been blessed by his mercy so far. I would not tax it if I was you. You’ve acted like a spoiled child up to this point but now fathers mad, and is going to give you the spanking you deserve. If you repent now he will show you mercy, if you don’t he very well might smite you. Again, please if not for the sake of your souls do it for you bodies.

Just remeber if anything happens to you it would be your own fault for doubting God. While it saddens me to think of your heart as being so cold I understand that’s God’s will, and I will not cry over his judgment against you. Don’t you see? It YOU causeing that’s causeing this pain and suffering and it will be YOU who is at fault for angering God, and calling forth his wrath. In the end God works through us all, and we are nothing more then his implements his children.

A veiled threat is still a threat. If your god is real, then it can take care of itself. The fact that it needs peons like you to do its dirty work only shows that it actually has no power, which is most likely because it does not exist.

Do you seriously think that your argument holds up? When Christians are persecuted by people in Islamic countries, do you say they’re being punished by Allah?

In those cases, and in our case, every single one of these actions is being taken exclusively by other human beings. You could be like the crazy women who kill their kids and say “God told me to!” but just like them you would be wrong.

Your idea that these people who have been threatening us, and you yourself, are all just tools being used by your god to punish us is ridiculous. It is simply your way of justifying your actions and the actions of the other halfwitted goons who can’t deal with words using words and have to resort to threats and violence.

If your god were so pathetic that it needed cretinous parrots like you to defend it, why should anyone worship it anyway?

I know that it is difficult to ask for proper grammar, English conventions, and other general communication requirements. However, many of us here do not have that much difficulty. However I digress from your lack of ability to communicate on basic tenets any elementary student would be able to correct and shall go to your basic message – as much is painful to read on a basic grammar level.

God – Does Not Exist
Your claims about having a truth have no evidence. “Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” ~Carl Sagan~

God is not there. Just because your brain chemicals make you feel that doesn’t mean anything. “A stroll through a lunatic asylum shows that faith proves nothing.” ~Nietzsche~

Please leave your dogma at home, for it has no evidence and lacks basic logic on a fundamental level.

I can see that all of your hearts are hardened like stone. You will not listen to reason, and you will not embrace love. I truly pity all of you. You are indeed sad pathetic fools (Psalms 14:1). I will be praying for each of you, but I think it might be too late. I’m not sorry to know each of you will be burning in eternal pain, I’m not sorry to think that even after million years have gone by you will still be there, because it is God’s will, and your choice. But know this “atheist”, you WILL be held accountable for any who have been lead astray, of that I can assure you. God will NOT tolerate it!

I do hope that one day you feel gods love, but it’s not up to me. Good bye, and please don’t hate God, you have only your self’s to blame.

You probably had at least partly good intentions with your posts, but to see you say “You will not listen to reason, and you will not embrace love.” as if you have been very reasonable and loving really baffles me.

Your message from the beginning has been more of hate than love. You basically say “You deserve to be physically attacked for vocally opposing God. If you are hurt or killed I will not feel bad about it, and I will not be sorry to know that each of you will be burning in eternal pain.”

You also spew baseless personal insults “You are indeed sad pathetic fools (Psalms 14:1).”, and claiming that it’s not you but the Bible that says it does nothing to mitigate the offense. It is you who choose to sling these insults, and although I know it’s not the Christian way, you should take responsibility for the things you do and say.

It’s true that I have insulted you as well, with ample reason I believe, and I take responsibility for my words. Your posts have been largely parroted nonsense, and I feel that your “arguments” have shown a distinct lack of intelligent thought, so I don’t feel very bad about the cretinous part either.

Perhaps “Fuck you.” was not the best way to start, but when you come in supporting the violent jerks we’ve had to deal with, it is difficult to respond in a civil manner.

If you actually want to have a thoughtful and reasonable discussion, I am still completely willing, but if you spew more hate then I can’t promise to be nice in return.

By the way, your implication in saying “atheists” that we actually believe in your god and are simply rejecting him is also completely false. You must think that we are both insane and the worst kind of evil to believe that we could really think you were telling the truth and then not only try so hard to condemn ourselves to Hell, but to drag as many people as we can down with us.

The TRUTH is, those of us who identify ourselves as atheists in all sincerity do not believe in your god, or in any gods, and we are not remotely concerned about your Hell because it is nearly impossible that it exists or that your god exists to send us there.

We do not “rebel against God” because we “love our sins”, we really, truly do not believe in any way. It is not “written on our hearts”. We see no hint of Yahweh in ourselves or in the entire universe. Even if you can’t understand that, please try to accept that this is the way atheists see the world. We are not “rebellious children” of your god, we do not believe in it. At all.

Speaking of violence and aggression, I found out that many of the eggs SFTS put out for Thursday where smashed by CRU (Campus Crusade for Christ). The fact of the matter is people like Truth are not alone in this world. Many people out right hate us and what we are. It’s not fair and it’s not right but that’s just the way people are. Many Christians have nothing to stand on and when it comes down to it no hope out side of their dogmatic and blood soaked ideals. HOWEVER! We can not allow our self’s to sink to their level. We are good and moral people, we have something they will never have, a reason to be out side of slavery to a non-existent god.

And yes, if any one is wondering, I’m forever done with Christianity. It is out right evil and most of their practitioners are as well. I’ve seen what Christianity dose to many people, and I can’t stomach it anymore. The events that have taken place over the few weeks, which where done by not a few, but many Christians, have lead me to conclude that it is no better then any other cult and may even be worse. To the few good Christians out there I’m sorry, but I can’t simply forget the wrongs that have been committed against us over the past few months, and the wrongs committed against atheist, and agnostics as a whole.

I’m going to continue my Rant in the forum, for now I need a time to cool down.

Omega, I know where you’re coming from. As little as I like to pigeonhole people, it would seem that the kind of justification people get from Christianity (and from religion in general) does no one any good. At its best, it causes many of them to be self-righteous and arrogant (whilst feigning humility), and at worst…some of their less ethical members can use it to justify anything they want to do. Anything.

Of course there are good Christians. But I think that’s mostly in spite of their religion, not because of it. They claim to do so many positive things in the name of their god, without thinking about what they’re implying: that they see no value in good deeds for their own sake. I’m sure they don’t think of it that way, but that’s why we’re here isn’t it? To get them to think about it?

Our comfort when confronted by close-minded people should be that we aren’t them. We do not worship things without evidence and without thinking. We are ethical because we truly care about people, and not what some voyeuristic, imaginary sky wizard thinks of us. We at least can be free, and try to free as many other people as we can through causing them to consider closely what they believe.

Still though, it’s important to try, and also to make sure that as few people as possible get sucked into these (and other) nonsensical worldviews. I think we do make a difference (however small) and that it is a good one.

@Mr. Atheist – The eggs were a sort of prank done by the Secular Free Thought Society for Easter. We got a bunch of plastic eggs and put candy and small bits of information inside them and hid them around campus. CRU apparently didn’t approve and smashed a bunch of them.

I wouldn’t have called it a prank Gadfly. The intent we had was legitimate and the reasons behind where justifiable. We where attempting to get our message out in a way that fit the season. Eggs aren’t just a Christan idea, rather they symbolize the concept of new life and fertility.

It indeed did have legitimate reasons, Omega. My intention in referring to it as a “prank” was not to belittle our message, but rather to mention that there was a good-humored side to our escapade. I would say that the term itself does not exclude something meaningful within it. My apologies for any confusion.

Welcome to the site, mr_atheist. Do we know you already? If not, please introduce yourself at one of our events or at the Secular Free Thought Society table or one of the meetings at ASU if you’re ever around.

Hello, my friend gave me one of your tracks yesterday, and told me to look up your site. He told me I get a laugh out of it, but I can’t help but feel enraged by it. Why do you mock God so? Why must you antagonize the followers of Christ so? These people are simply trying to spread the message of Jesus Christ our savor, and all you can do is belittle them. I feel sorry for all of you. You try to tear down the moral fiber that holds this world together, then I ask you what have you to replace it? Evolution? You do know what would happen then don’t you? There would be chaos in the streets people raping and killing one another all so they could be more ‘evolved’ then there brother. It’s sick, and depraved. I will be praying your all of your souls, even you can be save.

I find it interesting how so many people like you leave very unkind messages telling us how horrible and evil we are, and in some cases even threatening us, and then at the end say something like “God bless you all!” as if that insincere sounding “blessing” makes all of the hatred and disdain expressed the previous lines acceptable.

You’re not nearly as bad as “The TRUTH” up there, so I hope that pointing this out will actually make you think about what you’re saying and how you’re saying it next time you talk to people like us.

Why do you mock God so? Why must you antagonize the followers of Christ so? These people are simply trying to spread the message of Jesus Christ our savor, and all you can do is belittle them.

I mock “God” because it is worthy of mockery. I’m not beyond entertaining the idea that some intelligent being(s) may possibly have created the universe, but the god of the Bible is so clearly an ancient myth (and not a particularly good one even) that it’s hard for me to see how I ever believed in it.

You’re free to continue believing, but if you went through your entire life without really questioning what you’re believing in, I think that would be very sad. I hope that we can reach a lot of people who haven’t previously examined their beliefs closely, and I hope that we can help them to at least understand and accept us unbelievers even if they don’t manage to see through the lies of religions for themselves.

Anyway, I don’t see most of the preachers as “followers of Christ”, I see them as spreading fear, guilt, self-loathing, hate and generally just bad ideas and feelings. If they want to go out and heal the sick and feed the hungry, if they want to sell everything they have and give the money to the poor like Jesus says they should, you won’t see me trying to stop them. If they’re yelling abusive nonsense through loud speakers at everyone who walks by though, I’m not going to ignore it.

I feel sorry for all of you. You try to tear down the moral fiber that holds this world together, then I ask you what have you to replace it? Evolution? You do know what would happen then don’t you? There would be chaos in the streets people raping and killing one another all so they could be more ‘evolved’ then there brother. It’s sick, and depraved.

First of all, Christianity is not “the moral fiber that holds this world together”. Second, evolution is not a replacement for morality. It can help us explain where we get morality from, but we do not base our morality on the idea of evolution, we (like all people other than sociopaths) have, through our evolutionary history as social creatures, had the basic moral principles that we all share deeply ingrained in us.

Beyond that we as individuals, and collectively as a society, set up a more strict set of rules, and your religion goes even further in some ways (and not far enough in others). The idea that your religion is the basis of all of this though, rather than just your particular superset of beliefs about morality, is absurd.

If it were true, then rather than the percentage of atheists in prisons being dramatically lower than the percentage of atheists in our society as a whole, we actually would be out raping and killing like mad, just like your little fairy tale says we should be.

We are not like that though, and we will not be like that in the future, so you’d better start looking for your apocalypse elsewhere. If anyone’s going to bring it, it’s not us.

I haven’t threatened you once! Please don’t accuse me of things I have not done. You seem very hostile and angry Kazz, I’m not surprised that people might become aggressive given how antagonistic you are, I’m sorry to see it as it’s not at all what Christ preached, I can still understand their motives.

As for your counter arguments, I fail to see your point. You claim God is worth mocking despite the fact that he created you, and offers you salvation! All you need to do is repent and believe! Are you so proud that you don’t think you need to submit to an all powerful God? I’m sorry, that you’ve been threatened, but they where not real Christians, do not condemn the whole of faith, simply because a few individuals don’t understand Gods will.

Morality is given to you by God. By turning away from God and his truths you are lead to the lies of satan. Think about it, would you have people like Hitler if you didn’t have evolution? Again think about it, most of the evil done in the world was cause by atheist, people who didn’t want to be bound to laws and rules, so they made up their own. I know you’ll try and counter that your a good person, that you are morally acceptable, but let me ask you this, have you ever stolen something? Or even just told a lie? We all have, and as such no one can be good. It is only through God and his grace that you can be save from your crimes. To say you’re moral, but denie God is hypocrisy.

No, you have not threatened us, and you’ll note that he didn’t say you did. However, you must see that it’s a bit insulting to us all for you to say that you think we’d do these disgusting things without thought or regret, if it were not for your god.

I’ve heard this “But they’re not real Christians!” argument before. It’s kind of ridiculous, because it seems like every Christian has a different idea of what a real Christian is! Suffice to say, it’s difficult for us to keep track of who’s “real” and who’s “faking”, so we do have to lump you together at times. Then again, many of you also tend to assume that atheists and agnostics are all the same when really we aren’t. Let us at least agree that “Christian” is a self-definition and move on.

As we’ve said before, we don’t believe in your god. It’s not as if we “know” he exists, and that we’re denying him and dragging everyone to Hell with us. Rather we see no reason to believe, without proof, that there are any gods at all. It is not pride that keeps us from faith; rather, it’s a wish to know truth within the natural world, which contains no proof of anything supernatural.

Morality is not a contrivance of your god but something that we are born with (to an extent). Yes, some are born without it (i.e. sociopaths) but overall, it is not in our best interest as a species to harm one another. Culture generally reflects this knowledge. We are social animals, working best in cohesion with one another. Obviously most of us don’t go around killing and raping. That’s because it isn’t in our best interest to do so. Natural selection weeds out most harmful deviants from the gene pool.

Our culture and our emotions (which developed through evolution as well) also provide reinforcement. These factors increase the chances that we will do the right thing for society and for ourselves in a given situation. In simple terms, most people don’t have much incentive to hurt other people for short-term gain, and thus do not have any wish to. The examples you gave earlier are nonsensical, since being sentient we can see ahead and know how such things would affect us in the future (badly, and with no evolutionary benefit).

Few things about Christianity are in any way moral. Many of us simply cannot believe that any “loving” god could be so cruel as to force women into such starvation that they would eat their own babies (Deuteronomy 28:56-57). He also requires blood appeasement to satisfy his wrath at “sinners” and is, according to your Bible, responsible for the deaths of millions. At least concede that using a scapegoat (Christ) to absolve you is not moral in the least. Having someone die in your place changes nothing of what you’ve done. You’re taking the easy way out, and creating a supernatural justification for your “sins”. This is no god that I would ever willingly follow, and I am not alone in thinking so.

According to you, Hitler used evolution to justify his bloody work. But people historically have used their faith in gods/books/prophets to justify all manner of terrible things (Abraham comes to mind). This is not just in the distant past either, and it’s precisely why many of us eschew such baseless beliefs.

Also, to suggest that to tell a lie once makes you a liar, to steal once makes you a thief, etc. is ridiculous. If one habitually did this, I can see why the label would be apt. Of course, one could also say that to murder once makes you a murderer, but that’s something that’s a much higher crime. You see, unlike your god, humans have a sense of degree. How do we know it’s a higher crime? Because to murder once causes far more harm to people than lying/stealing once. And why do we generally refrain from doing these things? Because we don’t want to hurt people. And unlike people of faith, we have much less justification for doing harmful deeds. Not only do they do no one any good, but we do not like to do them.

All of my rambling boils down to this: give us proof. Morality has a perfectly good naturalistic explanation, if you look at the evidence. There’s no need for any gods to “make” us be moral; in fact, faith is a direct opponent of true morality. Your explanations just put us back into a dark age of absurd “god done it” explanations.

~Jesus said the wheat and the tares grow up together and they look alike-there is no way to tell for sure who is a true christian-we can generally say those who hold to the essentials of the historic faith would be orthodox

btw 80 percent of this country claim to be christians-just because you claim to be one doesnt make it so but there are prob more christians in this country than in the rest of the world-the US could be worse…with all these damn christians you would think it would be awful based on your post?

Let us at least agree that “Christian” is a self-definition

~everything is a self definition we define ourselves the way we want to-there are still facts

As we’ve said before, we don’t believe in your god. It’s not as if we “know” he exists,

~how do we know anything? are you truly open minded like i said i am open minded to the possib of no God in fact i have a lot of sex and drugs and rockroll to gain from non God

Culture generally reflects this knowledge.

~depends on the culture -my sociology prof taught me that everything is relative

We are social animals, working best in cohesion with one another.

~wasnt the 20th century the bloodiest century in history?

These factors increase the chances that we will do the right thing for society and for ourselves in a given situation.

~why do we have locks on the door?

In simple terms, most people don’t have much incentive to hurt other people for short-term gain,
and thus do not have any wish to.

~where do you live? i want to move there-why does communism generally suck? because people do not treat other with equity see communist russia or cuba?

as far as more examples of hurting people-see Sudan or even the current housing crisis-greed-

Few things about Christianity are in any way moral.

~show me one thing Jesus did that was not moral?

Also, to suggest that to tell a lie once makes you a liar, to steal once makes you a thief, etc. is ridiculous. If one habitually did this,

~we all habitually lie-every one of us is a liar–we are worse than we paint ourselves-you know this-not everyone steals but we all do wrong -if we were to show a movie of everything we have done in our life we would throw up

Morality has a perfectly good naturalistic explanation, if you look at the evidence.

~show me incontrovertible proof

There’s no need for any gods to “make” us be moral;

~true but where do ethics come from-evolution cant tell me how to live my life -what i should do and shouldnt do-there is no authority only convention and pragmatics but really no absolute truth except time plus chance plus a lot of death made everything

faith is a direct opponent of true morality.

~?

William Lecky, one of Great Britain’s most noted historians and a dedicated opponent of organized Christianity, writes:

“It was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character which through all the changes of 18 centuries has inspired the hearts of men with an impassioned love; has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments and conditions; has been not only the highest pattern of virtue, but the strongest incentive to its practice…. The simple record of these 3 shortyears of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists.”

Your explanations just put us back into a dark age of absurd “god done it” explanations.

~we dont have explanations for many things like i said humility is key

tell me about the origin of the universe-where did the matter come from-it has always existed-sounds like God? or how life arose from non life-and i dont mean amino acids(oxygen free)?

Gadfly you raise the best objections against christianity-i appreciate your thoughts-sorry my responses are quick-we’ll see you on Mill- i suppose we cant convince each other but at least I respect your thoughts